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MOCRATIC REPUBLICAN CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

SIXTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 

FOURTH JULY, 1838, 

BY EDWi5f Forrest, esci: 






PUBLISHED Br REaOEST OP TOE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE. 





NEW-TORK : 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. W. BELL, NEW ERA OFFICE, 
NO. ICO NASSAU-STREET. AND iT ANN-STREET. 



MDCCCXXXTni. 



i PUBLICATION PRICE. 
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ORATION ^^'^ 



DELIVERED AT THE 



DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN CELEBRATION 



SIXTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY 



INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



IN THE CITY OF NEWYORK, 



FOURTH JULY, 1838, 



BY EDWIN FORREST, ESQ. 



PUBLISHED BY REOUEST OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE. Z^" CZ ""^f ^T '^'^ 



NEW- YORK : 



PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JARED W. BELL, NEW ERA OFFICE, 

NO. 160 NASSAir-STREET, AND 17 ANN-STREET. 



MDCCCXXXVIII. 



J? "^ / 2- - / 4* 



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Entered according to the Act of Congress, In the year 1838, by Jared W, Bell, in the CterkV 
Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New- York. 



33^:5 



The following communication was received from Mr. Forrest, iri 

reply to a letter addressed to him, by the Committee of Arrangements, in 
behalf of the Democratic Republican Convention, soliciting a copy of 
his Oration for publication. 



New-York, July 10th, 1838. 
Gentlemen, 

In complying with your application, for a copy of my Address to the 
Democracy of this city, on the recent Anniversary of the Declaration of 
Independence, I desire to return my acknowledgments, to the gentle- 
men you represent, for the complimentary manner, in which they are 
pleased to speak of that production, and to yourselves individually, for 
the kind and flattering terms, in which you have communicated their re- 
quest. I place the Oration in your hands, to do with it as you may 
think proper ; though I am fearful its merits, will not prove to be of that 
kind, which best stand the ordeal of deliberate perusal in print. It was 
my intention, on first receiving your letter, to give the Address a thorough 
revision, with a view to strip it somewhat of its rhetorical character, by 
retrenching its exuberances of language, and subduing it to a soberer 
style of expression, more suited to compositions addressed to the "pauser 
judgement" of the reader. But, besides that, my engagements do not 
afford me leisure for this purpose. I am not satisfied, that it would be 
dealing in good faith with the public, to put before them, as my Oration pro- 
nounced on the 4th of July, an essay in any considerable degree, modi- 
fied by subsequent reflection and elaboration. 

I therefore, submit the manuscript to you, in the first words of hasty 
composition ; only asking the reader to exercise so much leniency, as I 
have a right to solicit, from the fact, that, of the brief period allowed me 
for preparation, much was necessarily dissipated, by the interruptioa of 
unavoidable, professional, and private occupations. 

I have the honor to be, &c. &c. &c. 

EDWIN FORREST. 



To Richard J. Smith, 
C. H. Bryson, 
Robert Walker, 
James E. Hyde, 
James Henry, 
Robert Townsend, 
Robert B. Boyd, 



Committee. 



ORATION. 



Fellow-Citizens, 

We are met this day to celebrate the most august 
event which ever constituted an epoch in the political an- 
nals of mankind. The ordinary occasions of public fes- 
tivals and rejoicings lie at an infinite depth below that 
which convenes us here. We meet, not in honor of a vic- 
tory achieved on the crimson field of war; not to triumph in 
the acquisitions of rapine; nor to commemorate the accom- 
plishment of a vain revolution, which but substituted one 
dynasty of tyrants for another. No glittering display of 
military pomp and pride, no empty pageant of regal 
grandeur, allures us hither. We come, not to daze our 
eyes with the lustre of a diadem, placed, with all its attri- 
butes of tremendous power, on the head of a being as 
weak, as blind, as mortal as ourselves. We come, not to 
celebrate the birthday of a despot, but the birthday of 
a nation : not to bow down in senseless homage before a 
throne founded on the prostrate rights of man ; but to 
stand up erect, in the conscious dignity of equal freedom, 
and join our voices in the loud acclaim, now swelling 



from the grateful hearts of fifteen millions of fellow men, 
in deep acknowledgement for the glorious charter of lib- 
erty our fathers this day proclaimed to the world. 

How simple, how sublime, is the occasion of our meeting! 
This vast assemblage is drawn together to solemnize the 
anniversary of an event which appeals, not to their senses 
nor to their passions, but to their reason ; to triumph at a 
victory, not of might, but of right ; to rejoice in the estab- 
lishment, not of physical dominion, but of an abstract pro- 
position. We are met to celebrate the declaration of the 
great principle of human freedom — that inestimable prin- 
ciple which asserts the political equality of mankind. We 
are met in honor of the promulgation of that charter, by 
which we are recognized as joint sovereigns of an empire 
of freemen ; holding our sovereignty by a right indeed di- 
vine — by the immutable, eternal, irresistible right of self- 
evident truth. We are met, fellow-citizens, to commemo- 
rate the laying of the corner stone of democratic liberty. 

Threescore years and two have now elapsed since 
our fathers ventured on the grand experiment of freedom. 
The nations of the earth heard with wonder the startling 
novelty of the principle they asserted, and watched the 
progress of their enterprise with doubt and apprehension. 
The heart of the political philanthropist throbbed with 
anxiety for the result : the down-trodden victims of op- 
pression scarce dared to lift their eyes in hope of a suc- 
cessful termination, while they knew that failure would 
more strongly rivet their chains : and the despots of the 
old world, from their " bad eminences," gloomily looked 
on, aghast with rage and terror, and felt that a blow had 
been struck which loosened the foundation of their thrones. 



The event illustrates what ample cause there was fot 
the prophetic tremors which thrilled to the soul of arbi- 
trary power. Time has stamped the attestation of 
its signet on the success of the experiment, and the 
fabric then erected now stands on the strong basis of 
established truth, the mark and model of the world. The 
vicissitudes of threescore years, while they have shaken 
to the centre the artificial foundations of other govern- 
ments, have but demonstrated the solidity of the simple 
and natural structure of democratic freedom. The lapse 
of time, while it dims the light of false systems, has con- 
tinually augmented the brightness of that which shines 
with the inherent and eternal lustre of reason and justice. 
New stars, from year to year, emerging with perfect radi- 
ance in the western horizon, have increased the benignant 
splendor of that constellation which now shines the po- 
litical guiding light of the world. 

How grand in their simplicity are the elementary pro- 
positions on which our edifice of freedom is erected ! A 
few brief, self-evident axioms, furnish the enduring basis 
of political institutions, which harmoniously accomplish 
all the legitimate purposes of government to fifteen mil- 
lions of people. The natural equality of man ; the right 
of a majority to govern; their duty so to govern as to 
preserve inviolate the sacred obligations of equal justice, 
with no end in view but the protection of life, property, 
and social order, leaving opinion free as the wind which 
bloweth where it listeth: these are the plain, eternal prin- 
ciples on which our fathers reared that temple of true 
liberty, beneath whose dome their children congregate 
this day, to pour out their hearts in gratitude for the pre- 



\ 



8 

cious legacy. Yesi on tiie everlasting rock of truth the 
shrine is founded where we worship freedom ; and 

" When the sweeping storm of time 
Has sung its death dirge o'er the ruined fanes 
And broken ahars of the mighty fiend 
Whose name usurps her honors, and the blood, 
Through centuries clotted there, has floated down 
The tainted flood of ages," 

that shrine shall stand, unshaken by the beating surge of 
change, and only washed to purer whiteness by the deluge 
that overwhelms all other political fabrics. 

The very simplicity of those maxims on which is reared 
the proud arch of our confederated democracies, embra- 
cing a hemisphere in its span, gives signal assurance of 
that inherent durability, which can withstand unhurt the 
stormy conflicts of opinion, and the tempest breath of time. 
Simplicity is the invariable characteristic of truth. Error 
loves to hide her deformity in cumbrous shapes and com- 
plicated envelopments, to bury her sophistries in mazy 
labyrinths of subtlety, and disguise her purposes in oracu- 
lar ambiguities. But truth is open as the day ; her aspect 
is radiant with candor ; her language direct and plain ; 
her precepts admirable in beauty, irresistible in force. 
The grand elementary principles of whatever is most val- 
uable to man are distinguished by simplicity. If we fol- 
low nature to her hiding places, and wring from her the 
secret by which she conducts her stupendous operations. 
we shall find that a few simple truths constitute the foun- 
dation of all her vast designs. If we roam abroad into 
the fields of science, the same discovery will reward our 
investigations. Behold, for example, on what a few self- 



evident axioms is reared that sublime and irrefragable 
system of mathematical reasoning, by means of which 
man proportions the grandest forms of art, directs his 
course through the pathless wastes of ocean, or, ascend- 
ing into the boundless fields of space, tracks the comet 
in its fiery path, and " unwinds the eternal dances of the 
sky." 

We are apt, in political applications, to confound sim- 
plicity with barbarism ; but there is the simplicity of intel- 
ligence and refinement, as well as the simplicity of igno- 
rance and brutality. Simplicity is the end, as it is the ori- 
gin,of social effort : it is the goal, as well as the starting post, 
on the course of nations. Who that reads the lessons of 
history, or surveys the actual condition of mankind, with 
thoughtful eyes, does not perceive that, in religion and 
morals, in science and art, in taste, fashion, manners, 
every thing, simplicity and true refinement go forward 
hand in hand. As civilization advances, the gorgeous 
rites of an idolatrous faith, performed with pompous cere- 
monial before altars smoking with hecatombs of human 
victims, are succeeded by the simple and refined worship 
of a sublimer creed. The dogmas of an arrogant philos- 
ophy, full of crude and contradictory assumptions, are fol- 
lowed by the harmonious discoveries of inductive reason. 
The grotesque and cumbrous forms of architecture, glit- 
tering with barbaric pomp and gold, give place to the 
structures of a simpler and severer taste. Literature 
strips off her tawdry trappings of superfluous ornament, 
and rejecting the quaint conceits of cloistered rhetoricians, 
and their elaborate contortions of phrase, speaks to the 
heart in words that breathe the sweet simplicity of nature. 
Simplicity is indeed the last achievement in the power of 

3 



/ 



10 

man. It is the ultimate lesson to be acquii'ed before he 
can reach that state of millennial equality and brother- 
hood, which the inspiring precepts of democratic philoso- 
phy, not less than the sublime ethics of the Christian faith, 
teach us to hope may yet conclude, with an unsullied 
page, the crime-stained annals of our race. 

To the genius of Bacon the world is indebted for eman- 
cipating philosophy from the subtleties of the schoolmen, 
and placing her securely on the firm basis of ascertained 
elementary truth, thence to soar the loftiest flights on the 
unfailing pinions of induction and analogy. To the genius 
of Jefferson — to the comprehensive reach and fervid pa- 
triotism of his mind — we owe a more momentous obligation. 
What Bacon did for natural science, Jefferson did for 
political morals, that important branch of ethics which 
directly affects the happiness of all mankind. He snatch- 
ed the art of government from the hands that had envel- 
oped it in sophisms and mysteries, that it might be made an 
instrument to oppress the many for the advantage of the 
few. He stripped it of the jargon by which the human 
mind had been deluded into blind veneration for kings as 
the immediate vicegerents of God on earth ; and pro- 
claimed in words of eloquent truth, which thrilled con- 
viction to every heart, those eternal self-evident first 
principles of justice and reason, on which alone the fabric 
of government should be reared. He taught those " truths 
of power in words immortal" you have this day heard; 
words which bear the spirit of great deeds ; words which 
have sounded the death-dirge of tyranny to the remotest 
corners of the earth ; which have roused a sense of right, a 
hatred of oppression, an intense yearning for democratic lib- 
erty, in a myriad myriad of human hearts; and which,rever- 



11 

berating through time like thunder through the sky, will, 

in the distance far away, 



Waken the slumbering ages. 

To Jefferson belongs, exclusively and forever, the high 
renown of having framed the glorious charter of Ameri- 
can liberty. To his memory the benedictions of this and 
all succeeding times are due for reducing the theory of 
freedom to its simplest elements, and in a few lucid and 
unanswerable propositions, establishing a groundwork on 
which men may securely raise a lasting superstructure of 
national greatness and prosperity. But our fathers, in the 
august assemblage of '76, were prompt to acknowledge 
and adopt the solemn and momentous principles he 
asserted. With scarce an alteration — with none that 
affected the spirit and character of the instrument, and 
with but few that changed in the slightest degree its ver- 
bal construction — they published that exposition of human 
rights to the world, as their Declaration of American In- 
dependence ; pledging to each other their lives, their for- 
tunes, and their sacred honor, in support of the tenets it 
proclaimed. This was the grandest, the most important 
experiment, ever undertaken in tlie history of man. But 
they that entered upon it were not afraid of new experi- 
ments, if founded on the immutable principles of right, and 
approved by the sober convictions of reason. There were 
not wanting then, indeed, as there are not wanting now, pale 
counsellors to fear, who would have withheld them from 
the course they were pursuing, because it tended in a di- 
rection hitherto untrod. But they were not to be deter- 
red by the shadowy doubts and timid suggestions of 
craven spirits, content to be lashed forever round the same 
circle of miserable expedients, perpetually trying anew 



12 

the exploded shifts which had always proved lamentably 
inadequate before. To such men, the very name of ex- 
periment is a sound of horror. It is a spell which con- 
jures up gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire. They seem 
not to know that all that is valuable in life — that the 
acquisitions of learning, the discoveries of science, and 
the refinements of art — are the result of experiment. It 
was experiment that bestowed on Cadmus those keys of 
knowledge with which we unlock the treasure-houses of 
immortal mind. It was experiment that taught Bacon 
the futility of the Grecian philosophy, and led him to that 
heaven-scaling method of investigation and analysis, on 
which science has safely climbed to the proud eminence 
where now she sits, dispensing her blessings on mankind. 
It was experiment that lifted Newton above the clouds 
and darkness of this visible diurnal sphere, enabling him 
to explore the sublime mechanism of the stars, and weigh 
the planets in their eternal rounds. It was experiment 
that nerved the hand of Franklin to snatch the thunder 
from the armory of heaven. It was experiment that gave 
this hemisphere to the world. It was EXPERIMENT 
that gave this continent FREEDOM. 

Let us not be afraid, then, to try experiments, merely 
because they are new, nor lavish upon aged error the ven- 
eration due only to truth. Let us not be afraid to follow 
reason, however far she may diverge from the beaten 
path of opinion. All the inventions which embellish life, 
all the discoveries which enlarge the field of human hap- 
piness, are but various results of the bold experimental 
exercise of that distinguished attribute of man. It was 
the exercise of reason that taught our sires those simple 



13 

elements of freedom on which they founded their stupend- 
ous structure of empire. The result is now before man- 
kind, not in the embryo form of doubtful experiment ; not 
as the mere theory of visionary statesmen, or the mad 
project of hot brained rebels : it is before them in the 
beautiful maturity of established fact, attested by sixty- 
two years of national experience, and witnessed through- 
out its progress by an admiring world ! Where does the 
sun, in all his compass, shed his beams on a country, freer, 
better, happier than this ? Where does he behold more 
diffused prosperity, more active industry, more social har- 
mony, more abiding faith, hope, and charity ? Where are 
the foundations of private right more stable, or the limits 
of public order more inviolately observed 7 Where does 
labor go to the toil with an alerter step, or an erecter 
brow, effulgent with the heart-reflected light of conscious 
independence 1 Where does agriculture drive his team 
a-field with a more cheery spirit, in the certain assu- 
rance that the harvest is his own 1 Where does com- 
merce launch more boldly her bark upon the deep, aware 
that she has to strive but with the tyranny of the ele- 
ments, and not with the more appalling tyranny of man 7 

True it is, that a passing cloud has occasionally flecked 
the serene brightness of our horizon, and cast a moment- 
ary shadow on the earth ; and there are a sort of boding 
political soothsayers, who, with malignant alacrity of evil 
augury, magnify each transient speck into a fearful har- 
binger of desolating tempests. But an empire, rock- 
founded as our own, on the adamantine basis of truth 
and universal equity, mocks the vain predictions, and 
vainer aspirations, of those who either fear or wish its 
fall. What though the eager passions of men have some- 



14 

times broken through the restraints of order, and heady 
tumult, with precipitate hand, has seized the sword and 
scales of justice'? Did not the voice of reason instantly 
hush the clamorous shout of riot, and hasty anger abashed 
at his own intemperate act, restore the ravished emblems, 
and bow with deference before the recovered dignity of 
the laAvs 1 

But how pitiful — how worse than pitiful, the wTetched 
aim of those, who gloat over these rare and transient 
ebullitions of tumultuous rage as supplying an argument 
against the adequacy and benign effects of democratic 
government ! Have these revilers of the principle of 
liberty read the lessons taught by the history of the past ; 
or have they considered the forceful admonitions with 
which the present state of the other empires of the world 
is fraught ? If the mild spirit of equal laws, which derive 
their sanction immediately from those whom they affect, 
cannot wholly subdue the stormy passions of man, will 
they explain what better form of political institutions 
has accomplished that result 1 

Methinks they turn, and with ready gesture point to 
that monarchy from which this young republic sprung. 
I cast my eyes towards her with no unfilial glance. I 
reverence England — with all her faults, I reverence 
the mother of my country, and the great exemplar of the 
world in arts, in arms, in science, literature, and song. I 
reverence her for the principles of civil liberty which she 
has scattered, "like flower seeds by the far winds sown," 
over the whole surface of the globe. I reverence her for 
that she was the parent of Hampden and Sidney, of Ba- 
con and Newton, of Milton and Shakspeare. Yes ! 



u 

though she drove our fathers from her shores with the 
accursed scourge of political and religious persecution, 
and though, like an unnatural parent, she battled with 
her children when they asserted the unalienable prerog- 
atives of humanity and nature, I reverence England. 
But let not my eyes be turned to where she sits in the 
swollen pride of aristocratic grandeur, for an example of 
that system of polity which can wholly restrain the out- 
breaks of popular phrenzy. Behold, w hat fires are those 
which flash across her borders, and wrap them in the red 
and fumid wreath of conflagration 7 They are kindled 
by the riotous and incendiary sons of agriculture, who, 
pushed by want to the extreme verge of endurance, are 
now excited to madness at the sight of art introducing 
her contrivances to render their labour superfluous, and 
snatch the scant crust from their famishing mouths. 
But hark ! in an another quarter the hoarse roar of many 
voices is ascending, mingled with the crash of massive 
bodies, falling in shattered fragments to the earth. The 
tumult proceeds from the pale operatives of the man- 
ufactories, turning at last and rending the hands that 
degraded human nature to the drudgery of brutes, with- 
out affording it even the respite and nurture which brutes 
enjoy. And mark again, from yonder sea-port come the 
sounds of sudden fray. A press-gang, with the myrmi- 
dons of power at their backs, are in fierce conflict with the 
populace. The latter contend desperately, for they are 
contending for the inestimable right of personal freedom. 
But see the guards in blood-red livery, (fit color for their 
sanguinary trade!) hasten forward to the field of action, 
and restore peace and order at the bayonet's point. 
These are some of the scenes which a cursory glance 
over England descries. 



16 

The tremendous means of overawing man which a des- 
potism exercises, may repress, for a while, the outward man- 
ifestations of human passion ; but, the mischief works not 
less surely that it works concealed, and at last, gathering 
strength superior to the resistance, it bursts with an ex- 
plosion the more terrific for the delay. The dams and 
embankments of arbitrary power may, for a while, com- 
pel the stream of society to flow in a direction contrary to 
that of nature ; but wider is the havoc of the deluge, when 
the flood sweeps away its bounds, and gushes in wild tor- 
rents over the land. Happy, then, that country, whose 
simple polity places no restraint on opinion, which, freely 
expressing itself in the constituted modes, continually 
conforms the institutions to the public will, and thus pre- 
vents all occasion and excuse for violent disruption and 
change. Compare the annals of this confederacy with 
those of any other nation, and the beneficent influence of 
democratic liberty, in this respect, as in all others, will 
plainly appear. 

Can the political skeptic cast his eyes over this vast 
empire — can he look on the broad bright face and sturdy 
form of popular freedom, and not find all his fine woven 
Aveb of speculative doubts of man's capacity for self- 
government melt like breath into the wind 1 It is but 
threescore years since our national birthday dawned 
upon the earth. Look now abroad upon this populous 
land. Is this the continent, now resonant with the many- 
mingled hum of active life, which yesterday presented 
but the scattered smoke of a few colonial settlements, 
curling here and there from the dense foliage of a cheer- 
less, boundless, trackless wilderness 1 Whence is derived 
the strange activity which has wrought this change--«o 



17 

vast, so sudden, it almost makes the wildest tales of 
magic credible 7 Whence ? — but from the inspiring in- 
fluence of equal democratic liberty. 

" Yes, in the desert there is built a home 
For freedom. Genius is made strong to rear 
The monuments of man beneath the dome 
Of a new heaven. Myriads assemble there 
Whom the proud lords of man, in rage or fear, 
Drive from their wasted homes." 

No need of standing armies here, " the hired bra- 
voes that defend a tyrant's throne," to protect the peo- 
ple in the secure enjoyment of their rights. No need of 
complicated guards and checks to keep the even balance 
of the law. No need of a portentous and unnatural 
union between things sacred and profane, to force the un- 
willing consciences of men to worship God with rites 
their souls reject. Here at last is discovered the grand 
political truth, that in the simplicity of government con- 
sists the strength and majesty of the people ; that as the 
contrivances of state increase in complexity, those whom 
they affect are degraded and made wretched ; and that 
wiien the institutions of society shall conform to the 
beautiful simplicity of nature, which does nothing in 
vain, then will man have attained the utmost limit of 
human felicity. In the progress of that great democratic 
experiment, the origin of which we are met this day to 
celebrate, let us keep constantly in mind, that the sole 
end of government, consistent with the unalienable equa- 
lity of human rights, and the greatest diffusion of happi- 
ness, is the mere protection of men from mutual aggres- 
sion, leaving them otherwise in unlimited freedom, to 
follow their own pursuits, express their own opinions, and 
practise their own faith. 



18 

The day is past forever when religion could have fear- 
ed the consequences of freedom. In what other land do 
so many heaven-pointing spires attest the devotional hab- 
its of the people? In what other land is the altar more 
faithfully served, or its fires kept burning with a steadier 
lustre 1 Yet the temples in w hich w^e worship are not 
founded on the violated rights of conscience, but erected 
by willing hands ; the creed we profess is not dictated by 
arbitrary pow^er, but is the spontaneous homage of our 
hearts ; and religion, viewing the prodigious concourse of 
her voluntary followers, has reason to bless the auspi- 
cious influence of democratic liberty and universal tole- 
ration. She has reason to exclaim, in the divine language 
of Milton, " though all the w inds of doctrine were let 
loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, w^e 
do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt 
her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple ! for wiio 
ever knew truth put to the w orse in a free and open en- 
counter 7 Her confuting is the best and surest suppress- 
ing." The soundness of this glorious text of religious 
liberty has now been approved to the world by the in- 
contestible evidence of our national experience, since it 
is one of those " columns of true majesty" on wiiich our 
political fabric stands. Let bigotry and intolerance turn 
their lowering eyes to our bright example, and learn the 
happy, thrice happy consequences, both to politics and 
religion, from placing an insuperable bar to that inces- 
tuous union, from wdiich, in other lands, such a direful 
brood of error's monstrous shapes have sprung. 

Not less auspicious w^ould be the result, if adhering 
closely to the avowed purposes and duties of democratic 
government, we should preserve an equal distance be- 



19 

tween politics and trade, confining the one to the mere 
protection of men in the uninfringed enjoyment of their 
equal rights, and leaving the other to be regulated by en- 
terprise and competition, according to those natural prin- 
ciples of economic wisdom which Avill be ever found more 
just and efficient than the imperfect and arbitrary re- 
straints of legislation. But above all, let us be careful, 
by no political interference w4th the pursuits of industry 
and improvement, to violate that grand maxim of equali- 
ty, on which, as on its corner stone, the fabric of demo- 
cratic freedom rests. That we should frown indignantly 
on the first motion of an attempt to sunder one portion of 
the union from another, was the parting admonition of 
Washington ; but with deeper solicitude, and more sedu- 
lous and constant care, should we guard against a blow 
being aimed, no matter how light, or by what specious 
pretext defended, against that great elementary principle 
of liberty, which, once shaken, the whole structure will 
topple to the ground. Beware, therefore, of connecting 
government, as a partner or co-operator, with the affairs 
of trade, lest the selfish and rapacious spirit of trade 
should prove stronger than the spirit of liberty, and the 
peculiar advantage of the votaries of traffic should be re- 
garded more than the general and equal good of the 
votaries of freedom. 

Yet deem me not governed by a narrow sentiment of 
hostility to trafiic. On the contrary, I am its friend. I 
regard it in all its legitimate influences as a benefactor 
of mankind. I regard it as the cultivator of amity be- 
tween the distant portions of the globe, knitting them to- 
gether by a constant interchange of kindly offices in a 
thousand ties of interest and afTection. I regard it as 



20 

ehewing men their mutual dependence on each other, and 
cherishing a feeling of brotherhood for the whole human 
race. It explores every desert of the earth, and traverses 
every ocean, rescuing its continents and islands from the 
long night of ignorance and barbarism, and bringing them 
within the blessed light of the day-star of religion and 
civilization. The fervor of equinoctial heat cannot re- 
lax, nor the accumulated horrors of polar winter chill its 
hardy and elastic spirit of enterprise. It breaks through 
the sordid barriers which, without its aid, would confine 
each being to his own narrow spot of earth, and makes 
the inhabitant of the most ungenial climate a commoner 
of the world, bountifully supplying him with its various 
productions, and opening to him all its magazines of 
science, literature, and art. These are the achievements 
of traffic under the influence of its own simple and salu- 
tary laws. But once violate the great principle of equa- 
lity, once invest it with political immunities, and, from a 
benefactor, it becomes an oppressor of mankind, pervert- 
ing the true end of government, snatching its advantages 
with a greedy and monopolizing hand, and leaving its 
burdens to fall with augmented weight on other necks. 
Beware, then, of bestowing under any name, or for any 
purpose, exclusive privileges on any portion of the people ; 
for it is the nature of power to enlarge itself by continual 
aggregation, and like the snowball, which, by its own 
motion, becomes an avalanche, and buries the hamlet in 
ruins, it may fall, ere we dream of danger, and crush us 
with its weight. 

If, in any respect, the great experiment which America 
has been trying before the world has failed to accomplish 
the true end of government — " the greatest good of the 



21 

greatest number" — it is only where she herself has proved 
recreant to the fundamental article of her creed. If w6 
have not prospered to the greatest possible extent com- 
patible with the condition of humanity, it is because we 
have sometimes deviated, in practice, from the sublime 
maxim, " that all men are created free and equal, that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien- 
able rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." If in no instance we have 
transgressed this axiom of democratic liberty, how is it 
that one man may freely perform what it is a crime for 
another to attempt ? By what principle, accordant with 
equal rights, are the penal interdictions of the law thrown 
across my path, to shut me from a direction, which an- 
other may pursue without fear or hinderance ? Why are 
a few decorated with the insignia of chartered privileges, 
and armed in artificial intangibility, while the many 
stand undistinguished in the plain exterior of the natural 
man, with no forged contrivance of the law to shield them 
from the "shocks that flesh is heir to 7" Are these things 
consistent with the doctrine which teaches that equal pro- 
tection is the sole true end of government? that its re- 
straints should hold all with equal obligation 1 that its 
blessings, like the " gentle dews of heaven," should fall 
equally on the heads of all '? 

It is one of the admirable incidents of democracy, that 
it tends, with a constant influence, to equalize the exter- 
nal condition of man. Perfect equality, indeed, is not 
within the reach of human effort. 

" Order is heaven's first law, and this confest, 
Some are and must be greater than the rest ; 
More rich, more wise." 



22 

Strength must ever have an advantage over weakness; 
sagacity over simplicity ; wisdom over ignoranpe. This is 
according to the ordination of nature, and no institutions 
of man can repeal the decree. But the inequality of so- 
ciety is greater than the inequality of nature ; because it 
lias violated the first principle of justice, which nature her- 
self has inscribed on the heart — the equality, not of phy- 
sical or intellectual condition, but of moral rights. Let 
us tlien liasten to retrace our steps, wherein we have 
strayed from this golden rule of democratic government. 
This only is wanting to complete the measure of our na- 
tional felicity. 

There is no room to fear that persuasion to this effect, 
though urged with all the power of logic, and all the capti- 
vating arts of rhetoric, by lips more eloquent than those 
which address you now, will lead too .suddenly to 
change. Great changes in social institutions, even of 
acknowledged errors, cannot be instantly accomplished, 
without endangering those boundaries of private right 
which ought to be held inviolate and sacred. Hence it 
happily arises, that the human mind entertains a strong 
reluctance to violent transitions, not only where the end 
is doubtful, but where it is clear as the light of day, 
and beautiful as the face of truth ; and it is only when 
the ills of society amount to tyrannous impositions, that 
this aversion yields to a more powerful incentive of con- 
duct. Then leaps the sword of revolution from its scab- 
bard, and a passage to reformation is hewn out through 
blood. But how blest is our condition, that such a resort 
can never be needed. " Peace on earth, and good will 
among men," are the natural fruits of our political system. 
The gentle weapon of suffrage is adequate for all the 



23 

purposes of freemen. From the armory of opinion we 
issue forth in coat of mail more impenetrable than ever 
cased the limbs of warrior on the field of sanguinary 
strife. Our panoply is of surest proof, for it is supplied 
by reason. Armed with the ballot, a better implement 
of warfare than sword of the '-icebrook's temper," we 
fight the sure fight, relying Avith steadfast faith on the in- 
telligence and virtue of the majority to decide the victory 
on the side of truth. And should error for awhile carry 
the field by his stratagems, his opponents, though defeated, 
are not destroyed : they rally again to the conflict, ani- 
mated with the strong assurance of the ultimate preva- 
lence of right. 

*' Truth crushed to earth shall vise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error wounded writhes in pain, 
And dies among his Avorshippers." 

What bounds can the vision of the human mind descry 
to the spread of American greatness, if we but firmly ad- 
here to those first principles of government which have 
already enabled us, in the infancy of national existence, 
to vie with the proudest of the century-nurtured states 
of Europe ] The old world is cankered with the diseases 
of political senility, and cramped by the long-worn 
fetters of tyrannous habit. But the empire of the west 
is in the bloom and freshness of being. Its heart is 
unsered by the prejudices of "danmed custom ;" its intel- 
lect unclouded by the sophisms of ages. From its bor- 
ders, kissed by the waves of the Atlantic, to 

" The continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashins: ;" 



24 

from the inland oceans of the north, to the sparkling sur- 
face of the tropical sea, rippled by breezes laden with 
the perfumes of eternal summer, our vast theatre of na- 
tional achievment extends. What a course is here for 
the grand race of democratic liberty ! Within these lim- 
its a hundred millions of fellow beings may find ample 
room, and verge enough to spread themselves and grow 
up to their natural eminence. With a salubrious clime 
to invigorate them with health and a generous soil to nour- 
ish them with food ; with the press — that grand em- 
balmer not of the worthless integuments of mortality, 
but of the offsprings of immortal mind — to diffuse its vivi- 
fying and ennobling influences over them ; with those ad- 
mirable results of inventive genius to knit them together, 
by which space is deprived of its power to bar the pro- 
gress of improvement and dissipate the current of social 
amity ; with a political faith which acknowledges, as its 
fundamental maxim, the golden rule of christian ethics, 
" do unto others, as you would have them do unto you:" 
with these means, and the constantly increasing dignity of 
character which results from independence, what bounds 
can be set to the growth of American greatness? A 
hundred millions of happy people ! A hundred millions 
of co-sovereigns, recognizing no law, but the recorded will 
of a majority ; no end of law, but mutual and equal good ; 
no superior, but God alone ! 

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